Vince Frost is feeling reflective. The designer is in the middle of a long overdue visit to London when CR catches up with him, in what is one of his first trips since the onset of the pandemic and Australia’s decision to close its borders to the rest of the world. It also happens to be approaching 20 years since his decision to swap the city in which he first made a name for himself for a new life in Sydney, where he is the founder, CEO and executive creative director of Frost*collective.
“Walking around Clerkenwell, walking past my old studio and just seeing people around that I know, it feels really nice and reassuring. And I think that in a time when things are tough in the world, there are still opportunities and connections and value that you can add to the world,” he says.
Frost has always had a slight outsider’s perspective on his surroundings. Born in Brighton, he was just 18 months old when his family moved to Canada. He returned to the UK when he was 16, along with his new “funny accent”, and ended up studying design at West Sussex College of Art. “I went to design school because I was shit at everything else,” he laughs. A decade later, he would become Pentagram’s youngest ever associate director at the age of 27 before starting his own studio, Frost* Design, in 1994.
